The Agony of Rejection

As opposed, say, to the righteousness of entitlement.

The self-obsession of people who seem to think that they are admirable in some very signal ways, comes to the forefront when they are challenged by reality. And reality is that small children have their place. In a playground. At home with their adoring parents and extended family. Strolling through a park in a baby carriage. At the pediatrician's office, ensuring their health status is above par. Being read to, from the age of three months.

Three months. That's a quite young child. Well, proud parents do read to their children at that age. No doubt feeling that intelligence seeps through every pore of their child's being, and reading the Financial Post to a child will prepare him/her for high finance and big bucks. How droll. Parents do like to be stopped by strangers asking to see the little darling's face, because people do enjoy seeing children of all ages. At area parks, strolling about with their parents.

Decidedly not at upscale restaurants. Or not-so-upscale eateries. Where people like to get away, relax, enjoy an evening meal untrammelled by the presence of children. There are always fast-food places where kids are in their element. Those parents who have higher aspirations for their children, to haul them off to more notable dining places should take steps to teach them the wisdom of being seen and not heard.

Alas, a three-month-old will be heard.

But in the case of John Taylor, chef and operator of Domus Cafe at ByWard Market, and the newly-opened Taylor's Genuine Wine and Food Bar, a trendy new restaurant on Bank Street, and his wife and business partner, they've run afoul of pretentious aspirations for a three-month-old child on the part of its parents and proud aunties. Whose idea to celebrate a birthday was for them all to assemble at the new wine/food bar and inaugurate it as a baby park.

Your heart simply goes out to such people, exemplary citizens sensitively cognizant of the rights of others to peace and serenity in the upscale atmosphere of a new wine/food bar whose celebrated (in Ottawa, anyway) chef proposes to give another area of town a taste of exquisite dining opportunities. They will countenance the presence of young children at Domus, but at the wine/food bar? not so much.

Come at lunch time, please do, but dinner? kindly reconsider. Such an insult, having their rights trampled by a restaurant owner who has in mind all the complicated nuances of an infant present where space does not lend itself, nor do the activities of the wait staff, let alone the customers for whom eating out in this divine new atmosphere reflects an escape from the home brood.

But for Sisters Triest and Joey Rathwell and Ruth Gard, proud mother of little Jackson Gard, this is a travesty, an injustice, an insult, their rights trampled. Cue the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. Really. There is much satisfaction in high dudgeon and low umbrage. It's newsworthy. It merits a full colour photo of three attractive women with soulful expressions edging toward smiling spite, baby between them.

How dare the proprietors of a private restaurant such as Taylor's Genuine Wine and Food Bar, invite them to reconsider their desire to foist the presence of a baby upon the restaurant and its clients? How dare they recommend a lunch date when what they aspired to was a dinner date in full regalia of extended family of five, plus baby in a in a 'car seat' resting on a restaurant chair, included in the celebrations?

The restaurant, according to its owners, is meant to be an "adult place". They have no ill will toward children. But do feel that reasonable people can understand their position, and not wish to infringe upon the rights of others. Say, for example, other parents of children who have arranged for babysitters to tend to their offspring to give them the freedom to get out for the evening, one of relaxation and freedom from children's demands.

All the accommodating recommendations made by the restaurant's owners, inclusive of picking up the dinner tab should it be agreed that the child would be left in the care of a baby-sitter, failed to soothe the hurt feelings of those whose plans have gone awry. "That's not going to fly", said one of the sisters. After all, it's a matter of dignity, of human rights.

And so they will impose upon this restaurateur-couple the obligation under the current law as it pertains to the operation of Human Rights Commissions, the necessity to defend themselves. It will cost them tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and the smug sisters will have their tab picked up by the taxpayers.

You just don't fool around with peoples' human rights, and think you can get away with it.